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U13752295

Listed below are comments made by U13752295 between Saturday, 20th December 2008 and Tuesday, 23rd December 2008.

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Will Obama get tough with Israel? 2:13pm on 23 Dec 2008 Concerning proof of Israeli intent to commit genocide, Luacene, in the last item of Post # 103, links to Plan Dalet (Daleth).

Plan D essentially required the military occupation and administration of Arab villages. It also specifies "in the event of resistance, the armed force must be destroyed and the population must be expelled outside the borders of the state".

As the Plan was put into action, a famous Israeli journalist was there, fighting in the front line. His report is linked in Post # 47.

"..in the course of the fighting, an Arab village came under heavy fire. Its inhabitants - men, women and children - fled, of course, to the next village.

Then we fired on the next village, and they fled to the next one, and so forth, until the armistice came into force and suddenly there was a border (the Green Line) between them and their homes.

The Deir Yassin massacre gave another powerful push to the flight.

When was the start of the "ethnic cleansing" you spoke about?
In the second half of the war, after the advance of the Arab armies was halted, a deliberate policy of expelling the Arabs became a war aim on its own.

...The real decision was taken after the war: not to allow the 750 thousand Arab refugees to return to their homes".

Avnery also adds that the soldiers had received orders to kill any who sought to return to their homes..

These two items would suggest that that the intent deepened after the intitial drafting of Plan Dalet.

Has anyone read the book by Ilan Pappe, "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" ? That might give us some more facts.
Will Obama get tough with Israel? 04:16am on 23 Dec 2008 RE: intent

Perhaps a lawyer can help us out here:
I would suspect that "intent" requires a reasonable possibility of carrying out the intended act.

For example, an individual suicide bomber might want to "kill as many as possible", but would have no chance of destroying an ethnic group.
Will Obama get tough with Israel? 03:36am on 23 Dec 2008 The last item in Post #103 speaks of Palestinians committing "many massacres" against Israelis and asks whether this be not genocide, and further asks if "ethnic cleansing is only ethnic cleansing when it is successful?"

Post # 91 defines genocide and 3(d) specifies that the attempt to commit genocide coupled with the intent to destroy a people and one of the acts specified in Article II constitutes genocide.
Thus, the answer to your question would appear to be "No, it need not be successful if the criteria of Article II are met".

As to "ethnic cleansing", Post # 98 indicates that it may or may not also be genocide. In any event, both are war crimes.

The suggestion that the Palestiians (non-state actors) may also be guilty of genocide or ethnic cleansing is an interesting one, but, does it speak to the guilt or innocence of the Israeli government with respect to genocide or ethnic cleansing?

It is the latter point which bears on the question of "should Obama get tough with Israel?".
Obama's Republican fans 01:00am on 23 Dec 2008 Bienvenue # 293

Indeed, I am in communication with Southern fundamentalists who do not know what fascism really is but have been told that Obama portends fascist government and do repeat same on their Forum postings.

Are there still Populists left? I thought that they had all been convinced to vote Republican!

How does FDR fit into your political classification scheme?
Obama's Republican fans 10:17pm on 22 Dec 2008 Do not disregard the "fascist socialism" [sic ]comments.

Since Obama became a serious candidate (read "threat"), the guillible have been fed the idea that he is a "fascist". By this, they mean "authoritarian dictator".

They do not realise that the shame culture of fundamentalist upbringing naturally produces authoritarian robots. The burning desire to project the shame and thus reduce the guilt causes them to hate and want to kill those who do not share their worldview.

Bob Altemeyer has written much concerning the right-wing political psychology of such individuals.

Someone recently mentioned a study reporting that 30% of Americans prefered a "strong leader who did not have to bother with laws and parliaments".

I wonder how much overlap there is with the religious right in the USA?
Will Obama get tough with Israel? 1:32pm on 22 Dec 2008 There is some question, as indicated by posts #92 and # 93, as to whether the actions of the Israelis against the Palestinians (initially, in 1948) constitute "ethnic cleansing" or "genocide".
It seems that both are considered war crimes.

From the 2005 Encyclopedia Britannica:

"The establishment of the ICC reinforced the links between ethnic cleansing and other offenses such as genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. In its finalized text on the elements of the crimes in the court's jurisdiction, the Preparatory Commission for the International Criminal Court made clear that ethnic cleansing could constitute all three offenses within the ICC's jurisdiction.

Genocide, for example, was defined as an act that may include the systematic expulsion of individuals from their homes; the threat of force or coercion to effect the transfer of a targeted group of persons was recognized as an element of crimes against humanity; and the “unlawful deportation and transfer,” as well as the displacement, of civilians were recognized as elements of war crimes."

In addition various villages were said to have had most of their residents willfully killed.

Since intent is the key to a definition of genocide, the evidence concerning intent is crucial in this matter.
Will Obama get tough with Israel? 00:05am on 22 Dec 2008
It is asserted in Post # 92 that the Israeli actions in 1948/49 were not genocide, but were ethnic cleansing.

Since ethnic cleansing is so far undefined, one must examine the intent and the actions, particularly with regard to Article II of the Convention on Genocide.

If the intent and any of the criteria of genocidal action are met, then the action constituted genocide and a definition of ethnic cleansing becomes unnecessary.

Now, was the intent in driving out the Palestinians committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such?

It seems clear that the intent was to destroy the Palestinians within the territory that Israel sought to occupy.

The specific acts of genocide are specified in Article II:

a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

One must then ask whether members of the group were killed; whether serious mental harm was inflicted; whether conditions of life were or are being inflicted to bring about the destruction in whole or in part of the group.

The criterion of forcible transfer of children to another group seems to reflect questionable drafting. To forcibly transfer a family implies the transfer of children. The additional phrase "to anther group", seems misleading. In the context of the statute, this may be interpreted as to another national group, e.g., Jordan.

An early posting mentioned the "exclusion of certain other villages", i.e. those where the inhabitants were massacred.

It should be evident that these criteria must be established or refuted before one can validly assert that genocide did or did not occur.
Will Obama get tough with Israel? 4:54pm on 21 Dec 2008 The existence or non-existence of intent to commit genocide has not been clearly established in the foregoing postings by either side. This needs to be done.

"genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group..

The specific acts were specified in Post # 36.

Article III provides that the following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.

Postings by both sides have adequately addressed the acts involved as specified by Article II of the Genocide Convention (Post # 36). What is now needed is to establish or to refute the intent of the Israelis with regard to the Palestinians in the matter of intent and within the categories of Article III.
Pakistan: Britain's terror heartland? 2:11pm on 21 Dec 2008 # 42 was breathtakingly good!!
Update: Wo Weihan 7:20pm on 20 Dec 2008 This is far more important.

Why have we not heard about it?

What are the implications?

The full article is in the New York Review of Books nybooks.com:

"Volume 56, Number 1 · January 15, 2009
China's Charter 08
Translated from the Chinese by Perry Link

The document below, signed by more than two thousand Chinese citizens, was conceived and written in conscious admiration of the founding of Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, where, in January 1977, more than two hundred Czech and Slovak intellectuals formed a

loose, informal, and open association of people...united by the will to strive individually and collectively for respect for human and civil rights in our country and throughout the world.

The Chinese document calls not for ameliorative reform of the current political system but for an end to some of its essential features, including one-party rule, and their replacement with a system based on human rights and democracy.."

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